Women with hats like the rear ends of pink ducks
\napplauded you, my poems.
\nThese are the women whose husbands I meet on airplanes,
\nwho close their briefcases and ask, \u201cWhat are you in?\u201d
\nI look in their eyes, I tell them I am in poetry,<\/p>\n
and their eyes fill with anxiety, and with little tears.
\n\u201cOh, yeah?\u201d they say, developing an interest in clouds.
\n\u201cMy wife, she likes that sort of thing? Hah-hah?
\nI guess maybe I\u2019d better watch my grammar, huh?\u201d
\nI leave them in airports, watching their grammar,<\/p>\n
and take a limousine to the Women\u2019s Goodness Club
\nwhere I drink Harvey\u2019s Bristol Cream with their wives,
\nand eat chicken salad with capers, with little tomato wedges
\nand I read them \u201cThe Erotic Crocodile,\u201d and \u201cEating You.\u201d
\nAh, when I have concluded the disbursement of sonorities,<\/p>\n
crooning, \u201cHigh on thy thigh I cry, Hi!\u201d\u2014and so forth\u2014
\nthey spank their wide hands, they smile like Jell-O,
\nand they say, \u201cHah-hah? My goodness, Mr. Hall,
\nbut you certainly do have an imagination, huh?\u201d
\n\u201cThank you, indeed,\u201d I say; \u201cit brings in the bacon.\u201d<\/p>\n
But now, my poems, now I have returned to the motel,
\nreturned to l\u2019\u00e9ternal retour of the Holiday Inn,
\nnaked, lying on the bed, watching Godzilla Sucks Mt. Fuji,
\naddressing my poems, feeling superior, and drinking bourbon
\nfrom a flask disguised to look like a transistor radio.<\/p>\n
Ah, my poems, it is true,
\nthat with the deepest gratitude and most serene pleasure,
\nand with hints that I am a sexual Thomas Alva Edison,
\nand not without collecting an exorbitant fee,
\nI have accepted the approbation of feathers.<\/p>\n
And what about you? You, laughing? You, in the bluejeans,
\nlaughing at your mother who wears hats, and at your father
\nwho rides airplanes with a briefcase watching his grammar?
\nWill you ever be old and dumb, like your creepy parents?
\nNot you, not you, not you, not you, not you, not you.<\/p>\n
-Donald Hall<\/em><\/p>\n\n Women with hats like the rear ends of pink ducks applauded you, my poems. These are the women whose husbands I meet on airplanes, who close their briefcases and ask, \u201cWhat are you in?\u201d I look in their eyes, I tell them I am in poetry, and their eyes fill with anxiety, and with little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3990,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3989\/revisions\/3990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}